Lt. Gov’s Discount Fare

If you could be any animal, what would it be? There are completely defensible answers ranging from a pampered house cat, to a wild mustang, to a dolphin or a raven.

But there is only one answer to this: If you could be any restaurant in Alaska, what would it be?

The answer to THAT, my friend, is Denny’s in Fairbanks. Any other answer is just plain wrong.

You may remember that particular venue as the location for the infamous “Denny’s trial” of Schaeffer Cox fame – not to be confused with the Open Carry Day at Carl’s Junior. Schaeffer Cox (recently convicted of conspiracy to murder federal officials, and a host of weapons charges) had a firearms misconduct charge a couple years ago, but believes himself to be a sovereign citizen, and not accountable to the corrupt legal system of the Corporate States of America, and so throws himself a Common Law trial, with a jury of his peers. His peers are family, friends, family of friends, and friends of family. Bottom line – he gets a Grand Slam Acquittal.

Denny’s was also the location of a taped interview by a local journalist with Cox’s #2 in command, Les Zerbe. He sat with Cox and talked to the journalist for a long, long time about all kinds of things that interested the FBI. But when called to the witness stand during the trial, he unfortunately couldn’t remember the interview at all, nor what was said. Nothing. It was really weird.

And now, there’s this. Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell recently announced the formation of an “exploratory committee” for his potential candidacy for the United States Senate. He’s one of the Republicans licking his chops, and staring at Senator Mark Begich like he’s a big juicy burger.

Where did he announce this? Why, in Fairbanks, of course. And with whom did he meet at that very same Denny’s? “GOP activists,” that’s who.

This all might be an interesting and harmless piece of trivia, except for one thing.

Who got billed for this? If you’re an Alaskan, YOU did, my friend.

He spent $367.14 for his ticket to address a minerals conference as Lt. Governor, and to announce his campaign exploratory committee on the same day – November 30th. That’s a big no-no.

But it passed under the radar of everyone, except the Alaska Democratic Party. They asked about it via the dreaded Public Records Request, one week later on December 6. (The governor’s office has hated those things through several administrations now). Three weeks later, on December 28, they got a response saying that the governor’s office would get back to them after the holidays.

The second letter, on January 6, noted that, yes, the public had footed the bill for the plane ticket…. And um… heh heh heh… Mr. Treadwell will be reimbursing the state for about 7.5% of the cost of the ticket to cover the “one hour” he spent at a political event. Attached is an official calendar of the day.

And by the way, who paid for the Lite Gov’s “Moons Over My Hammy” and coffee? Still a mystery.

As of January 2, there had been no reimbursement, but I’m totally sure they would have gotten around to it, even if the ADP hadn’t asked.

Comments

This is all I know about Denny’s: When model-turned-actress Geena Davis married her third husband, Renny Harlin, she had his first name tattooed on her ankle. When the relationship soured (she’s now married to husband #4, whom I think is a plastic surgeon), she covered it up with a tattoo of the Denny’s logo.

Denny’s is only in Fairbanks and Anchorage here so it doesn’t even rise above the horizon for most of the state.
How-some-ever, the FBX one really stretches any notion of “restaurant” .
Is becoming more like a convention/community center for the price of a cup of bad coffee.
We didn’t get charged for that too, did we?

Dear A.P., would you happen to know whether the left tennant guv and the amateur bear whisperer-the late Tim Treadwell-are/were related? I’m pretty sure TT wasn’t an Alaska native because he would have been one of the dumbest ever imho. Muchas cracias.

Timothy Treadwell was born Timothy Dexter. He took his mother’s maiden name as a young adult. Whether she is/was related to the Gov Lt I don’t know. All of them, including the “left tennant gov”, come from the East coast which puts them out of our Alaska ken as regards genealogy .
We grow some dumb ones here too Mikey- native Alaskans and Alaska Native alike- but Mr T Treadwell was indeed in the top 20 of recent memory and most probably in the top 10.
Yoicks.